Posts Tagged ‘Frank Gehry’

Architecture: Miami: America’s Next Great Architectural City?: “..Miami, Florida is booming with new architectural projects by big names: everything from new condominums by BIG, to the restoration of the Saxony Hotel by Rem Koolhaas, to the new Miami Beach Convention Center. So why are so many big projects migrating to Miami Beach? The city is turning itself into an American cultural and civic center..Take, for example, the cultural institutions along Lincoln Road. The new addition of Herzog & de Meuron’s Parking Garage satisfies a necessity while also providing a rich, cultural gathering space, thanks to its designed social functions. The architecture breaks out from the anticipated form of the “concrete box for cars” and instead turns it into something that fits within the context of the neighborhood, physically and programmatically. The firm will also be expanding the Miami Art Museum, scheduled to reopen as the new Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) in 2013..There are also many cultural restoration projects in the works. The Bacardi Building, a modernist tower designed by Enrique Gutierrez in 1969 will be restored by Frank Gehry to house studios, offices and housing for artists of the National Young Arts Foundation. The exterior, which features a rich mosaic, will remain untouched. The Saxony Hotel will be restored by developer Alan Faena in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, situated across from a new Norman Foster tower in Miami Beach. The design is still under wraps, but it’s a highly anticipated addition to the urban fabric..What is it about Miami that is motivating developers to bring in renowned architects? In an article in Architect Magazine by Ian Volner, architects Herzog & de Meuron admit that the culture, weather, food and community are major attractions for Miami. But its history of Art Deco architecture and its obsession with air-conditioned, indoor spaces, are some of the negative characteristics that their new design for the Miami Art Museum hope to address. In their design, the heavy temple-like structure of the exterior is offset by the openness of the interior spaces, the abundance of hanging vegetation, and ample shaded outdoor spaces. Note those motifs, and recognize them even in the parking garage on 1111 Lincoln Road. Like the Miami Art Museum, Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the parking garage incorporates as much outdoor space as possible, shading, and vegetation..With the real estate market in Miami booming, the city has the opportunity to reinvent itself with a contemporary architecture, a refined sense of culture and community and with the assistance of talented and respected architects and designers. We look forward to watching as these projects develop..”

Architecture: Gehry and Mirvish unveil Toronto ‘Sculptures’: “..David Mirvish, founder of Mirvish Productions, and Toronto-born starchitect Frank Gehryhave officially unveiled a massive, mixed-use project that will transform Toronto’s downtown arts and entertainment district. The multi-phase project will significantly alter the city’s skyline with three, “sculptural” residential towers perched atop two, six story podiums..Mirvish describes, “I am not building three towers, I am building three sculptures that people can live in.”..The towers are inspired by Mirvish’s family history, as he describes, “This area was transformed 50 years ago after my father purchased the Royal Alexandra Theatre, and this project will continue the theatre’s future and transform the neighborhood again for the next 50 years. I am proud that we can continue this legacy that my father began.”..“It is very special for me to be able to work in Toronto where I was born and to engage the neighborhoods where I grew up,” added Gehry, as reported on Dexigner. “It’s especially interesting that this project involves the arts. That is always meaningful to me. With this project, I wanted to create buildings that were good neighbors to the surrounding buildings and that respected the rich and diverse history of the area. I also wanted to make nice places for the people who live in and visit the buildings. David has an exciting vision, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.”..The Mirvish/Gehry proposal will transform a significant stretch of King West between the Royal Alex Theater and John Street. Two, stepped podiums, relating to the scale of the surrounding context, will serve as a pedestal for the 80+ storey, “iconic” towers. They will house a 60,000-square-foot, non profit gallery that showcases Mirvish’s personal contemporary art collection, along with a new OCAD University facility that will front King Street West..The casualty of the proposal is the existing, 1993 Princess of Wales Theatre..Mirvish explained, “If there were a way of completing this project without removing the Princess of Wales Theatre, we would have followed it. But after careful consideration and many different plans, I decided not giving Gehry a full canvas on which to work would have meant compromises that would have lessened the power of the project.”..Both Mirvish and Gehry readily pointed out that the conceptual models do not necessarily represent the final project as it will eventually be built..Mirvish and Gehry’s next step depends on City approval..”

Architecture: Frank Gehry designs Facebook HQ Expansion: “..Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old co-founder of Facebook, has commissioned Frank Gehry to design a new campus headquarters on the outskirts of San Francisco Bay, California. Located across the highway from Facebook East, the company’s current headquarters, Facebook West will provide every luxury expected from a modern office space, from a flexible open floor plan, to arcade-filled lounge areas and a massive roof garden..The enormous, ten acre “room” breaks away from Gehry’s signature curves, and aims to provide a “system that’s not precious, that they [Facebook] can manipulate.” Work benches “line up in curving arcs like swarming fish”, organizing the 420,000 square foot facility into “neighborhoods” that softly flow into each other in an attempt to foster a collaborative, community-like environment..When Facebook employees need a break, they can retreat to outdoor-terraced cafes for some sushi and barbecue, play arcade games in the lounge with their co-workers, or escape up a “twisting wooden stair” to the lush roof garden..Construction is scheduled to begin in Spring 2013..For more information, check out Bloomberg’s exclusive coverage here..”

Design: Design Museum Collection App: Chairs: “..a series of interviews with Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic about 59 objects from their collection for the Design Museum Collection App for iPad, which is available to download free from the app store here..This film features extracts about the developments in chair design over the last 150 years, from the first mass produced Thonet No. 14 chair in the 1850s to the use of tubular steel as a material for furniture in the B3 (Wassily) chair in the 1920s, all the way to creating the shapes of Jasper Morrison’s Air Chair using gas injection at the turn of this century..Download the Design Museum Collection App »..”..”[above image]..Wiggle Chair by Frank Gehry: Best known for his iconoclastic architecture in buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, Frank Gehry has also experimented with furniture design throughout his career. One of his Easy Edges chairs, the Wiggle, 1972, is composed of 60 layers of cardboard bonded and screwed together. Gehry transformed an everyday material – the corrugated cardboard from which his architectural models were made – into a solid sculptural form. ‘I began to play with it, to glue it together and to cut it into shapes with a hand saw and a pocket knife,’ he recalled..” Article includes a video interview and some key excepts from the Design Museum’s app..